on the road with our son Charlie in autismland

My family's preferred spectator sport is (American) football (for teams on the East Bay -- silver & black attack and, most of all, Cal Berkeley) and basketball. So in the bottom of the 3rd when the Pirates were playing the Giants in San Francisco on Monday night, I had to ask Jim who's been a fan since at least the time he could read (4), 'why did the Bucs score all 5 runs in the 1st inning?

'So we could see them!' was Jim's happy response.

We soon left as Charlie was calling for 'shrimp chow fun!'. He'd been alternating being wide-eyed and beaming through a long BART ride, meeting me on the Embarcadero stop platform, slightly malfunctioning BART tickets, a walk in two directions on Market Street till we met our friend Tom at the Ferry Building, more walking to the stadium and up the ramps, sitting in the stands with French fries and a glorious view of the Bay (including, somewhere to the left, our house), watching the Pirates score those 5 runs including a homer in the 1st, managing the sound assault of music and clapping and cheers (Charlie has been amid louder and more boisterous), hailing a taxi, riding in the taxi where he was careful to put on his seatbelt and couldn't see that the driver had a warm bag of McDonald's (and was helping himself to fries), the ride back across the Bay while calling for 'shrimp chow fun' and with a family kitty corner from us trading a book (F For Effort) back and forth and laughing, a ride in the silver car to see the restaurant with the called-for item was closed, home for a snack from the refrigerator, bedtime.